The Stone Rainbow - A YA novel where love and prejudice collide in a small town

The Stone Rainbow by Liane Shaw

A continuation of Jack's story from Caterpillars Can't Swim.

Jack Pedersen is finding life complicated ever since he came out to his mom. Even though she's been doing her best to be understanding, it's obvious to Jack that his mom still wants to cry every time she says the word gay.

Complications go into overdrive when a new student named Benjamin arrives at his high school, and Jack starts experiencing feelings he's never allowed himself before. When a near tragedy turns life upside down, Jack realizes it's time to stop hiding and to stand up--for Pride, for Benjamin, and for himself.

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Learning Seventeen - a Teen Girl Trapped in a Baptist Reform School Falls For a Gorgeous Bad Girl

Learning Seventeen by Brooke Carter

New Hope Academy, or, as seventeen-year-old Jane Learning likes to call it, No Hope, is a Baptist reform school where Jane is currently being held captive.

Of course, smart, sarcastic Jane has no interest in reforming, failing to see any benefit to pretending to play well with others. But then Hannah shows up, a gorgeous bad girl with fiery hair and an even stormier disposition. She shows Jane how to live a full and fulfilling life even when the world tells you you're wrong, and how to believe in a future outside the "prison" walls. Jane soon learns, though, that Hannah is quietly battling some demons of her own.

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Fat Angie: Rebel Girl Revolution - Our Queer Heroine Returns, Struggling To Find Her Voice, Her Place, and Deal With the Loss of Her Sister

Fat Angie: Rebel Girl Revolution by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Sophomore year has just begun, and Angie is miserable. Her girlfriend, KC, has moved away; her good friend, Jake, is keeping his distance; and the resident bully has ramped up an increasingly vicious and targeted campaign to humiliate her. An over-the-top statue dedication planned for her sister, who died in Iraq, is almost too much to bear, and it doesn’t help that her mother has placed a symbolic empty urn on their mantel. At the ceremony, a soldier hands Angie a final letter from her sister, including a list of places she wanted the two of them to visit when she got home from the war. With her mother threatening to send Angie to a “treatment center” and the situation at school becoming violent, Angie enlists the help of her estranged childhood friend, Jamboree. Along with a few other outsiders, they pack into an RV and head across the state on the road trip Angie’s sister did not live to take. It might be just what Angie needs to find a way to let her sister go, and find herself in the process.

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Pins - A gay teen wrestler in 1993 New Jersey struggles with homophobia and the death of a teammate

Pins by Jim Provenzano

Set in Little Falls, New Jersey in 1993, PINS weaves the classic story of a Catholic saint into a compelling modern life -and near-death- account of Joey Nicci, a fifteen-year-old Italian-American wrestler.

After befriending Donald "Dink" Kohrs, Joey and his new posse get involved in pranks and partying that eventually get out of control, resulting in the death of a maligned fellow teammate.

The ensuing legal battle and media frenzy alter Joey's life and his self- perception as a gay teenager while shattering his fragile love for fellow teammate Dink. Like his patron saint, his battle against his own teammates forces him to suffer for his beliefs.

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A Very, Very Bad Thing - a gay teen finds out that love can make you do all the wrong things, even when you have the best of intentions

A Very, Very Bad Thing by Jeffery Self

"Marley feels adrift as one of the only gay kids in his North Carolina town until Christopher moves in. Christopher's smart, cute, gay -- and the son of the country's most famous TV evangelists. Marley is determined to win Christopher's heart and be with him forever. And his plan is working until Christopher's parents find out and send their son away to an infamous "gay conversion" program. Hurt and outraged, Marley finds himself telling big lies to both cover up and find the truth, lies that have suffocating repercussions for both boys."

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Alys - a Steampunked riff on 'Alice In Wonderland' with homophobia as a theme and a lot of hope

Alys by Kiri Callaghan

Following her gay best friend’s suicide, Alyson Carroll descends into the realm of Dreams and Nightmares. In her quest to find home, she discovers that Charlie might not truly be gone after all, but when she meets Oswin, the prince of Terra Mirum, she must face her own fears and raise an army against The Nightmare Queen, or surrender as the world of dreams is consumed by terror and darkness forever.

I recently caught up with author Kiri Callaghan (dressed as a fae character from her novel) and got the scoop:



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Escape From Enlightenment - A flipped dystopia where being lesbian is expected... and the main teen character isn't

Escape From Enlightenment by Tessa Rose

Marley is coming of age in a post apocalyptic, radically feminist society. Women have wrested all power and authority from men, who are kept in prison camps so they will never again wage wars and abuse women. Babies are incubated in artificial wombs and engineered to be attracted to their own sex. The process, however, doesn’t always work.
Marley worries about feeling no attraction to other girls until she meets Maddy. But she needs to win Maddy away from the odd values of a barely tolerated subculture. And Maddy would be horrified to know that Marley views illicit online pictures of boys.

The author explains the flip, and the queer content: "The main protagonist is a hetero girl who finds herself in a similar situation to gay teens today … actually a worse situation, because the boys she wants are nowhere to be found in cities populated by lesbians and older eunuchs. The story has subplots about gay teen boys, too."

This novel was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign and author-published. Add your review of "Escape from Enlightenment" in comments!

Without Chance - A 14 Year Old and his new friend try to solve a two-year old murder that everyone else thinks was a suicide. But they know better...

Without Chance by Christopher Bailey

Ryan had lost everything. His mother recently died of cancer, and his father had completely shut down after her death. His father even dragged him away from the city he'd grown up in, forcing him to leave all of his friends to move to a tiny, backwater town called Turnbridge, hundreds of miles from anything remotely interesting. Even the school's social scene seemed to revolve around activities and sermons at the local church.

Then he met Chance. Chance was quiet and friendly, and was an extreme social outcast due to his sexual orientation. He was also obsessed with an unsolved murder that had taken place two years previously. Everyone was convinced it was a suicide. Everyone except Chance, who believed the victim had been targeted due to his homosexuality.

Ryan didn't believe him until the accidents started, all seeming to focus around Chance. With the local culture so hostile toward the gay population, there were too many suspects and not nearly enough time as they tried to stop a killer who hunted in the name of God.

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An Infatuation - Will A 10 Year High School Reunion Re-Ignite The Gay Romance They Had (Even though they're both now married, one to a Man, and one to a Woman?)

An Infatuation by Joe Cosentino

With his ten-year high school reunion approaching, Harold wonders whether Mario will be as muscular, sexy, and tantalizing as he remembers. As a teenager, it was love at first sight for Harold while tutoring football star Mario, until homophobia and bullying drove Mario deep into the closet. Now they’re both married men. Mario, a model, is miserable with his producer wife, while Harold, a teacher, is perfectly content with his businessman husband, Stuart. When the two meet again, will the old flame reignite, setting Harold’s comfortable life ablaze? How can Harold be happy with Stuart when he is still infatuated with his Adonis, his first love, Mario?

Add your review of this Novella, "An Infatuation," in comments!

Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis - Homophbia, Corporate Responsibility, and A Young Woman Who Falls In Love With Someone Who Defies Gender Boundaries

Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis by Ali Smith

Imogen and Anthea, sisters that are opposites, work together at Pure, a creative agency attempting to “bottle imagination, politics, and nature” in the form of a new Scottish bottled-water business with global aspirations. Anthea, somewhat flighty and bored with the office environment, becomes enamored of a female “interventionist protest artist” nicknamed Iphisol, whose billboard-size corporate slurs around town are the bane of Pure’s existence. And when Anthea and Iphisol meet, it’s a match made in heaven.

Okay, for those like me that didn't know this off the top of our heads, "The myth of Iphis is one of the happier of Ovid's metamorphoses: the girl raised as a boy to avoid her father's wrath falls in love with another girl, upon which her gender is changed by the sympathetic goddess Isis to enable them to marry." -That's from the book's review in The Independent.

This book was recommended for teens by the Scottish Book Trust. Add your review of "Girl Meets Boy" in comments!

Georgia Peaches And Other Forbidden Fruit - Will Joanna Break Her Promise Or Lose Out On Love? (A Lesbian Teen Romance)

Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown

Joanna Gordon has been out and proud for years, but when her popular radio evangelist father remarries and decides to move all three of them from Atlanta to the more conservative Rome, Georgia, he asks Jo to do the impossible: to lie low for the rest of her senior year. And Jo reluctantly agrees.

Although it is (mostly) much easier for Jo to fit in as a straight girl, things get complicated when she meets Mary Carlson, the oh-so-tempting sister of her new friend at school. But Jo couldn't possibly think of breaking her promise to her dad. Even if she's starting to fall for the girl. Even if there's a chance Mary Carlson might be interested in her, too. Right?

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DRAW THE LINE - Can The Gay Teen Who Created A Gay Superhero Become A Hero In Real Life As Well?

Draw The Line by Laurent Linn

Here's a video interview I did with Laurent about his debut YA novel...




Here's the official synopsis:

Adrian Piper is used to blending into the background. He may be a talented artist, a sci-fi geek, and gay, but at his Texas high school those traits would only bring him the worst kind of attention.

In fact, the only place he feels free to express himself is at his drawing table, crafting a secret world through his own Renaissance-art-inspired superhero, Graphite.

But in real life, when a shocking hate crime flips his world upside down, Adrian must decide what kind of person he wants to be. Maybe it's time to not be so invisible after all, no matter how dangerous the risk.

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Undone - Jem's gay best friend's suicide (after being outed by a video that goes viral) drives Jem to find whoever is responsible... and make them pay

Undone by Cat Clarke

Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend, Kai, who kills himself after being outed in a highly private moment. All she has left is a series of letters he’s left her: one a month, each encouraging her to come out of her shell. But Jem has a different plan. Sure she’ll be more outgoing—whatever it takes to infiltrate the group of popular teens who released the video that made Kai commit suicide. And then she’ll bring them down.

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Riding The Rainbow - Two Fifth Grade Girls, One With Two Moms, The Other With Two Dads, Deal With Bullying, A Kidnapping, And A Moment Of Truth

Riding The Rainbow by Genta Sebastian

Plump, clumsy Lily is miserable in fifth grade where bullies torment her on the playground and in class because she has two mothers. Across the room Clara sits still as a statue, never volunteering or raising her hand, answering only in whispers with her head down to avoid curious eyes, keeping her family’s secret that she has two fathers.

One girl with two out-loud-and proud moms, another with two in-the-closet dads. What could go wrong, right?

This book won a 2015 "Goldie" Award in the young adult category from the Golden Crown Literary Society. Add your review of "Riding The Rainbow" in comments!

Two Weeks With The Queen - A Middle Grade Story Of An Australian Boy (whose brother is dying of cancer) and His Friendship with a Gay Man (whose partner is dying of AIDS)

Two Weeks With The Queen by Morris Gleitzman

'I need to see the Queen about my sick brother.' Colin Mudford is on a quest. His brother Luke has cancer and the doctors in Australia don't seem to be able to cure him. Sent to London to stay with relatives, Colin is desperate to do something to help Luke. He wants to find the best the doctor in the world. Where better to start than by going to the top? Colin is determined to ask the Queen for her advice.

After he doesn't get far with that, Colin meets Ted, a gay man whose partner is dying of AIDS. That friendship - and the challenges they both face - help Colin grow up.

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Fag – Aaron, a closeted high schooler, deals with homophobia online and in the real world

Fag by Krissy Bells

Aaron Garrett is many things in life: he is a son, a friend, a student, and caring boyfriend to his lovely girlfriend Leigh Ann. In these roles, he is kind, hardworking, smart, loving, dedicated, and considerate. At Jefferson High School, he is a leader, a football star, and well-respected by his peers. Aaron’s life is perfectly on track, he is pursuing a college scholarship and hopeful for the future, except for just one thing: Aaron Garrett is gay. When a former child star from Aaron’s small Southern town saturates the national media after making homophobic comments, Aaron’s life is turned upside down as supporters rally around the sentiments. Social media attention begins to swell nationally and locally until it begins to eat away at every part of Aaron’s existence.

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Playing A Part - A Young Gay Man Grows Up In His Parents' Puppet Theater... In Homophobic Russia

Playing A Part by Daria Wilke, translated by Marian Schwartz

For as long as Grisha can remember, the Moscow puppet theater has been his favorite place in the world, his home away from home. The dressing rooms and workshops, the gorgeous marble lobby, the secret passages backstage—he knows them like the back of his hand, and each time the curtain rises and the stage comes alive, it feels magical.

But life outside the theater is a different story. The boys in Grisha's class bully him mercilessly, and his own grandfather says hateful things about how Grisha's not "macho" enough. And to make things worse, Sam, Grisha's favorite actor and mentor, is moving away: He's leaving the country to escape the extreme homophobia he faces in Russia. Normally, Grisha would turn to his best friend, Sashok, for support, but she's dealing with problems of her own as she faces a potentially life-threatening heart condition.

Grisha's world is crumbling. He needs to find the strength to stand up to bullies and be there for his friends—but how?

It's interesting to note that this book, published by Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic) is cited as the first young adult novel from Russia to be translated into English. Here's the original cover of the novel in Russian:

My thanks to Avery Udagawa for the heads-up on this one! There's also a great interview here at the wonderful Cynsations blog with Marian Schwartz, the translator.

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Moon at Nine - a novel about two teenage girls who are arrested for being gay in Iran

Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis

Fifteen-year-old Farrin has many secrets. As the daughter of an aristocratic mother and wealthy father, Farrin must keep a low profile at her school for gifted girls in Tehran. It is 1988; in the ten years since the Shah was overthrown, the deeply conservative and religious government controls every facet of life in Iran. If the Revolutionary Guard finds out about her mother’s Bring Back the Shah activities, her family could be thrown in jail, or worse.

The day she meets Sadira, Farrin’s life changes forever. Sadira is funny, wise, and outgoing; the two girls become inseparable. But as their friendship deepens into romance, the relationship takes a dangerous turn. Refusing to deny their love for one another, the girls are arrested. Separated from Sadira, Farrin can only pray as she awaits execution. Will her family find a way to save them both?

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The Waiting Tree: Simon loves Stephen, but life (and religion, and family) get in the way

The Waiting Tree by Lindsay Moynihan

Eighteen-year-old Simon Peters wants to stand up for the truth about who he is. His love for Stephen is unwavering, but does he have the courage to defend it when his entire church community, including his eldest brother Paul, have ostracized him? Will Stephen's feelings change now that he's been banished to the Waverly Christian Center to learn how to be normal again? Trapped in a cashier's job he hates, struggling to maintain peace with his brothers after their parents have died, and determined to look after his mute twin and his friend Tina, Simon puts everyone else's needs before his own. It takes a courageous act on the part of Jude, his devoted twin, to change both of their lives forever. Jude, who is wiser than anyone ever knew. Jude, who understands that the meaning of the fig tree blooming in their scrappy backyard can finally set them free.

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Caught In The Crossfire - Two Teen Boys At Bible Camp, and One Forbidden Love (The Crossfire Trilogy)

Caught In The Crossfire by Juliann Rich

16-year-old Jonathan Cooper goes away to Spirit Lake Bible Camp, an oasis for teen believers situated along Minnesota's rugged north shore. He is expecting a summer of mosquito bites, bonfires with S'mores, and photography classes with Simon, his favorite counselor, who always helps Jonathan see his life in perfect focus.

What he isn't expecting is Ian McGuire, a new camper who openly argues against phrases like pray the gay away. Ian is certain of many things, including what could happen between them if only Jonathan could surrender to his feelings. Jonathan, however, tosses in a storm of indecision between his belief in God and his inability to stay away from Ian. When a real storm hits and Ian is lost in it, Jonathan is forced to make a public decision that changes his life.

This is Book One of the author's Crossfire Trilogy. 

Book Two is

Searching For Grace

First it’s a rumor. Then it’s a fact. And then it’s on.

Camp is over and Jonathan Cooper returns home. To life with his mother whose silence is worse than anything she could say…to his varsity soccer teammates at East Bay Christian Academy…to the growing rumors about what he did with a boy last summer at bible camp.

All the important lines blur. Between truth and lies. Between friends and enemies. Between reality and illusion.

Just when Jonathan feels the most alone, help arrives from the unlikeliest of sources: Frances “Sketch” Mallory, the weird girl from his art class, and her equally eccentric friend, Mason. For a short while, thanks to Sketch and Mason, life is almost survivable. Then Ian McGuire comes to town on the night of the homecoming dance and tensions explode. Fists fly, blood flows, and Jonathan—powerless to stop it—does the only thing he believes might save them all: he prays for God’s grace.

Book Three is

Taking The Stand

There’s a time for justice. Then there’s a time for action. And Jonathan Cooper knows exactly what time it is.

It is time to lie. To his parents, who think he’s on a ski trip with Pete Mitchell when he’s really gone to Madison to search for one person willing to testify for his boyfriend, Ian McGuire, who is facing the charge of Assault and Battery. To Ian’s parents, who have erased him from their lives. Even to himself. Because admitting his feelings for Mason Kellerman isn’t an option.

It is also time to face the truth. That Jonathan may have lied for nothing. That he may be powerless to save Ian from a guilty verdict. That whether he likes it or not, it is time for TAKING THE STAND.

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